


Like A Coastal Shelf

by inlovewithnight



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:47:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Like A Coastal Shelf

Dirty little secret: Half the time, Kevin doesn't even really listen when his mother talks.

Not on the phone, anyway. She's going on and on and he's nodding, even though she can't see it, because his reactions are really completely beside the point in this conversation. Her voice rises and falls in steady waves, breathless and inconsequential in the greater scheme of things and maybe the most familiar and comfortable thing in his life. His first memory probably involves his mother talking so fast he got dizzy.

He realizes a split second too late that the phone's gone silent. "Kevin?"

"Yeah, Mom?"

"I asked you a question." He winces at the edge in her voice--sometimes she _suspects_ that her children have learned to tune her out, and proving her right is like losing the game. "I'm sorry I'm not as interesting as torts and cases and whatever your professors talk about."

He picks up the shaker of oregano and adds it to the pan on the stove. "Sorry, Mom, I'm making dinner. Missed what you said. Spaghetti sauce--your recipe."

"Oh." All of her irritation vanishes, and he has to smile. "Well, that does take concentration."

"I know you left some ingredients out when you gave me this, Mom. It doesn't taste quite like when you make it."

"Takes a special touch, darling." She's _so_ pleased, and he mentally congratulates himself for dodging the bullet, but only for a second. "And I asked you if you're bringing anyone home with you this weekend."

His hand twitches and a lot more oregano than he intended ends up in the pan. "Why would I bring someone with me?"

"Well, Tommy's bringing Julie."

"Julia," he corrects automatically, reaching for a spoon. Julia is too terrified of Nora to ever correct her herself. "And Tommy's been with her for how long? That's not bringing someone, that's..."

"We're not talking about Tommy right now, Kevin, we're talking about you."

He looks past the end of the counter into the living room, where Nick is sprawled out on the couch, half watching TV and half flipping through a magazine. "I wasn't planning on it, no, Mom."

"You need to get out more, honey. Meet people. You work too hard. I know school keeps you busy, but you need to have fun, too."

He sighs and stirs the sauce again. "I didn't say I wasn't seeing anyone, Mom, just that I wasn't planning to bring him with me."

"Well, why not? You know you're always welcome to bring home whoever you want."

"He has things to do."

"No, I don't," Nick calls across the apartment, grinning over the edge of the magazine. "I love how you pretend my ears don't work, Kevin."

Kevin shakes his head firmly, mouthing at Nick to just stay out of it. For now. God. "Mom, look, I've got to drain the pasta, can I call you back later?"

"I'd love to meet your boyfriend, honey. We all would."

"He's not..." He stops himself just in time, just before he says something Nick will hear and he can't take back. "We'll see."

"I love you, Kevin."

"Love you too, Mom. Bye." He switches the phone off and tosses it down to the counter, hard enough that it bounces across the stovetop and lands behind the saucepan, and he burns his knuckles pulling it out. "Fuck."

"You okay?" Nick comes in and leans against the refrigerator, watching him with a frown.

"I'm fine, I just...burned my hand..." Kevin moves over to the sink and runs water over it, staring down at the quickly-reddening skin under the faucet, hating the matching flush rising in his face and the fact that he doesn't even know what he's getting upset about. "I'm fine."

"If you don't want me to come with you this weekend, it's okay."

"It's not that I don't want you to come with me."

"Then what is it?" Nick steps over to the stove and turns the heat off under the pasta. "Where's the colander?"

"I'll get it." Kevin turns the faucet off and fumbles through the cupboard. "And it's just...you know, we've only been seeing each other for a month or two."

"Yeah, so?"

"And doesn't that seem a little soon to subject you to my family?" He sets the colander in the sink and watches Nick dump out the pasta. "I mean, I'm still trying to make sure you like _me_."

"I like you, Captain Insecurity." Nick glances at him and smiles, then reaches out and touches the back of Kevin's hand. "And I bet I'll like your family, too."

"You really have no idea what you're saying." He turns his hand over to catch Nick's fingers against his palm; this is all still new enough that he wants to soak up and savor every little thing.

"I've seen the pictures," Nick continues, still smiling. "They don't have horns and I didn't see any evidence of pagan sacrifices or anything."

"Yeah, well, we clean that up before we get the camera out." Kevin moves over next to Nick at the stove, picking up the spoon again to stir the sauce. "And anyway, this thing this weekend's going to be boring."

"What is it, anyway?"

"Engagement brunch."

"For your brother?"

"No, my sister."

"The Republican?"

"No, the other one."

"See? I don't even know enough about your family to tell them apart." He grins and bumps his hip against Kevin's. "How much trouble can I get into with them?"

"Trust me, Nick." He leans over and kisses Nick's cheek quickly, trying to ignore the growing sense of inevitability twisting his stomach. Love life is going to meet home life, collision imminent, no survivors expected. "It's not your behavior that worries me."  
**  
Another dirty little secret: Kevin has figured out seven different ways he thinks he could kill his family and get away with it. Three of them involve being able to look a judge right in the eye and say "It was justifiable homicide by any definition."

He's gripping the tray of hors de oeuvres so tightly the ceramic squeaks under his fingers. He's been pressed into helping his mother and Kitty set up instead of protecting Nick from Tommy and Justin. The three of them are probably talking about something completely harmless, but Kevin doesn't _know_ and it's going to drive him nuts before they ever start eating. Nick laughs and Kevin's hands jerk, almost dumping the whole tray over on Mom's starched tablecloth.

"Be careful, Kevin." Kitty reaches over his arm to straighten out the centerpiece. "If you wreck those, Mom's going to have even more of a fit than she already is over that quiche turning out wrong."

"Tell me again why she didn't just hire a caterer?" He sets the tray down and glances back over his shoulder again at his brothers and Nick, standing by the pool with drinks in their hands and smiles on their faces and he really, badly, needs to know just what it is they're talking about.

Kitty stares at him. "You're kidding, right?"

"Sorry, forgot where I was for a minute." He shakes his head and winces as Mom's voice carries from inside the house again, letting Dad know exactly how ruined something or other is. "Sarah said she was going to get a caterer."

"Yeah, well, Sarah lost that fight. Big surprise."

"Where is she, anyway? Hiding from Mom?"

"Who's hiding from me?" Nora reaches over his other arm and moves the centerpiece back to where it was before Kitty touched it. "Put them right here, Julie."

"Julia," Kevin and Kitty correct in unison, and Julia glances gratefully at them as she puts another tray on the table.

"I need help getting the extra silverware down from the top cabinet. Can Nick give me a hand, Kevin? He's so tall."

"You're not really going to put my date to work, are you, Mom?"

"It's not work, Kevin, it's just lending me a hand." Nora bustles off across the yard and Kevin groans, shaking his head as Julia tentatively touches his arm.

"I can ask Tommy to help your mom, Kevin," she offers, and he shakes his head again.

"Too late, Julia. Thanks, but..." He watches Nick nod and smile and follow Nora into the house. "Mom's got him now. Let's hope he survives the experience."  
**  
One more secret, swear it's the last one: As crazy as they make him, there's pretty much nothing that matters to Kevin more than his family's opinion.

So right now he's dying by inches, standing here in the kitchen with a stack of dirty dishes as they stand around the counter and take Nick apart.

"I'm not sure what it is," Sarah says with a shrug. "He just bugs me."

"He's fake." Kitty covers a bowl of salad with plastic wrap and sets it on the table with a satisfied thump. "Totally pretentious."

"Well, he is a journalist," Tommy says dryly, dodging back as Kitty takes a swing at him. "And I didn't think he was that bad." Kevin's heart lifts for a minute before Tommy adds "Except his taste in football sucks."

"Uh-oh," Sarah says, rolling her eyes and reaching for some Tupperware. "The worst crime of all. Who does he root for, Tommy?"

"Big Ten," Tommy says with distaste. "I mean, what's that about?"

"He went to the University of Michigan." Kevin keeps his voice low, but they all jump at the words, turning with matching guilty expressions. "For undergrad. Die-hard Wolverine." He drops the dirty dishes to the counter hard enough that he hears the bottom one crack. "And I'm sorry you don't like him."

"He's a very nice young man, Kevin," Nora says with such scrupulous neutrality that Kevin's heart breaks a little more. "You should go out back and rescue him from Joe and Julia and Justin." She laughs lightly. "Isn't that funny, the three J's."

"Joe and Julia like him fine." Kevin's voice sounds flat to his own ears. "They told me so. Of course, their opinions are the ones that don't really count, since they're not, you know, my _family_."

"It only matters that you like him, not us," Tommy says, suddenly fascinated by something in the refrigerator. "You know? Who cares what we think?"

Kevin ignores him, looking past his mother to where William is carrying the chairs in off the porch. He's not even going to ask his father what he thinks. That's one of the rules--don't ask, don't tell, don't ruin Christmas again, like you did senior year, thanks, Kevin. "I think I'm going to go see if he's ready to go. I have a test on Monday, I need to get back and study."

"Hey, dude," Justin says, breezing past Kevin into the kitchen. "Nick's awesome."

Kevin has to laugh, even though it hurts. "Yeah?"

"Totally. He did an interview with a Laker girl. I mean, he didn't get as much out of that as he should have, duh, but still, that's really cool." Justin re-opens the Tupperware that Sarah just closed and digs in with his fingers, his eyes closing in an expression of exaggerated bliss. Kevin's stomach twists all over again.

Justin's stoned, the family's staring at Kevin and waiting for a conciliatory reaction he simply cannot manage, and if he says word one of what he _wants_ to say it's going to make his father snap "Watch your mouth, young man" and his mother start to scold. He can't manage that either, right now.

"I need to get back to school," he says again, instead, and turns and heads out the door.  
**  
"Any dirty little family secrets?" Nick asks, tugging Kevin tighter against him on the couch and stretching his legs out under the coffee table. "I've met them now, time to give me the dirt."

"Nothing worth sharing." Kevin shrugs and reaches for the remote. "Happy families, unhappy families, you know the drill."

"It's so hot that you read books, Kevin." Nick grins and digs into the bag of cookies on the couch, sending a spray of crumbs across the upholstery and the carpet. Kevin watches that and thinks about vacuuming tomorrow and wonders if this alone is something to break up over.

The thing is, it's inevitable now, whether he struggles against it or tries to ignore it or embraces it with open arms and picks the terminal fight right here on the spot while they flip back and forth between a Star Trek rerun and ESPN. Kevin likes Nick, he really does, and while he'd been able to keep his love life and his family separate, that was good enough. When the two worlds merge, though, the things that won't fit in both places shake loose and that's the end of it. The trails of debris that are Tommy and Sarah and Kitty and Justin's romantic histories as well as his own confirm it: being in love is all well and good, but family is deeper and heavier and forever. This isn't a case of an unstoppable force and an immovable object, it's an egg hitting an aircraft carrier.

And he knows all this stuff already, obviously, knows it by heart and inside out and upside down. The only reason he's repeating it to himself all over again is that it still stings, having to accept it every damn time.

"You know what's weird?" he asks, knowing that Nick won't know what he means but laying it out there anyway. "Family law."

"You hate family law," Nick mumbles around his cookies, taking the remote back. "You're only taking it to boost your GPA."

"Yeah." Kevin waits a minute for Nick to ask him what his point was. He doesn't, and that gets added to the brand-new imaginary tally of why they have to break up. "What's weird about family law is that it strips the whole concept down."

"The whole concept of what?"

"Family." Kevin reaches over and takes a cookie from the bag, rolling it between his fingers and frowning at the streaks of chocolate left behind. "I mean, it's this whole emotional thing, right, this giant knot of...everything. But legally speaking, a family's just a few custodial obligations and a marriage license. Maybe an inheritance at the end of the day. You snip those couple of threads and the whole thing just..." He gestures vaguely with his free hand. "Poof."

Nick glances at him and frowns, that deep furrow forming in his brow, and Kevin aches a little because pretty soon he's never going to trace that line with his fingertip again. "I think it's a little more complicated than that, isn't it? In real life?"

"Complicated." Kevin looks back at the screen and then down at his hand, startled to feel the cookie crumbling between his suddenly-clenched fingers. "Yeah, I guess complicated is one word for it."

Nick tightens his arm around Kevin, smiling a little, and Kevin can almost hear him thinking about how all this legal crap is more boring than the Star Trek. Kevin stares blankly at the TV screen and thinks about what it means to be a Walker in love. It's right there in the sentence structure: the family first and the lover second, and the twain shall meet if, and only if, the party of the first part is one very, very lucky SOB.

  



End file.
